Best cashback credit cards to maximise your savings

Singaporeans are always on the look out for the best cashback credit card to optimise their card spend. But many cashback cards have a minimum spend criteria and there’s only so much shopping, dining or travelling you can spend on each month. Plus there are a number of big payments you can’t pay with your credit card, such as rent, insurance premiums or school fees. It is often frustrating to the cardholder that they can’t earn cashback on these big bills – but CardUp’s here to help!

If you have been sceptical about signing up for CardUp and aren’t sure if the 2.6% fee is worth it, read on to see how someone who’s paying monthly expenses of over $2,800 can save nearly $800 on his rent, insurance and parking payment annually! But first, let us introduce 4 of the best cashback credit cards that work well with your CardUp spend.

1. UOB ONE Card

Already known as one of the best cashback credit cards in the market, it has a 3-tier spend system that rewards 3 levels of cashback to the cardholder.

Based on a spend of S$500 or S$1,000 monthly made over 5 or more purchases, cardholders enjoy up to 3.33% cashback for each qualifying quarter. This gives a quarterly cashback amount of S$50 or S$100 respectively. Those who spend $2,000 a month made over 5 or more purchases enjoy a maximum of 5% cashback for each qualifying quarter, giving a quarterly cashback amount of S$300.

While the various levels of cashback might be confusing to some, it can be extremely useful for those who need to pay a large bill on a monthly basis and have no problems meeting the minimum spend to earn the maximum amount of cashback.

2. Bank of China Family Card

An often overlooked cashback card locally is the Bank of China Family card. It’s a great cashback card for everyday spend because it offers a rather high percentage of cashback compared to other cards in the market.

For a start, foodies will love this card because you get to enjoy 7% cashback on dining everyday of the week. You also get a nice 5% cashback on online purchases such as Cardup payments, supermarket spend and even hospital bills!

3. Maybank Platinum Visa Card

With up to 3.33% cashback on local purchases including CardUp payments, the cashback earned will automatically be used to offset your bill. Similar to the UOB ONE Card, the minimum monthly spend and cashback given is on a quarterly basis. Simply charge a minimum of S$300 monthly for each quarter to qualify.

4. Standard Chartered MANHATTAN World Mastercard Card

This card is suitable for those with large monthly expenses. With 3 cashback tiers capped at S$200 per quarter, you can get up to S$800 in cashback a year with no minimum spend required. Here’s how the 3 tiers work: 3% cashback when you spend S$3,000 or more a month, 1% cashback when you spend between S$1,000 and S$2,999 a month and 0.5% cashback when you spend below S$1,000 a month.

How to optimise your cashback with CardUp

By signing up with CardUp, you can start earning cashback on all your monthly expenses such as rent and insurance premiums by making these payments through our platform. Your payee doesn’t even need to sign up with us or accept credit card payments. Yes, it’s that easy!

Let’s take a look at an example to show how much you stand to gain with CardUp:

Damien has a rent payment of $1,950 per month which he usually pays via bank transfer. In addition he pays his $585 monthly insurance premiums by GIRO as his insurer doesn’t accept credit card payments. He also incurs office season parking expenses of close to $300 each month which he pays by cheque. By using CardUp and splitting his payments onto 3 cashback credit cards, he can earn cashback of almost $800 annually.

Monthly payment

Monthly Cardup fee (2.6%)

Monthly cashback

Annual cashback

Net gain per year

TOTAL

$2,828

$73.51

$140

$1,680

$798

UOB One Card

$1,950

$50.70 ($608 per year)

$100 ($300 per quarter)

$1,200*

$1,200 - $608 = $591

BOC Family Card

$585

$15.21 ($182.52 per year)

$30

$360

$360 - $182 = $178

Maybank Platinum Visa Card

$293

$7.60 ($91 per year)

$10 ($30 per quarter)

$120

$120 - $91 = $29

*Valid for users who meet the minimum spend requirement of 5 or more purchases on the UOB ONE Card

Even after deducting the CardUp fee, Damien saves almost $800 per year just by paying his rent, insurance premiums and season parking via CardUp! That’s a hefty amount of savings, isn’t it? So stop hesitating and start using CardUp to get more out of your cashback credit cards now!

The information above is correct as of 12th February 2018. For cards not listed here, please note that only the base earn rate of cashback applies. The rate of cashback and rewards earned is at the discretion of the card issuing bank and card terms can change at any time. CardUp makes no warranties that the example given will be reliable, complete or kept up-to-date at all times, and shall not be liable in respect thereof.

51 Comments

The 2 cashback cards we’ve used in the example each have a cashback cap on a spend of $2,000 (or cashback cap of $100 monthly). What we’ve shown in the illustration is a monthly rent amount of $3,500 – that’s why splitting the amount over 2 cards ($2,000 to max out the cashback on one card and balance $1,500 on the second card) works best to maximise cashback earned.

If you’d like more info on how you can maximise your cards, please feel free to let us know at hello@cardup.co.

CardUp operates in sectors where you currently can’t use your credit card because the recipient doesn’t accept cards. Examples include landlords for rent payments, condo mcst fees, some school fees and insurance premiums etc. These are existing expenses that you are already paying via bank transfer or cheque today and are not earning any rewards on. Using CardUp would then be the only way you can pay via credit card to earn rewards and also enjoy the convenience of being able to set up recurring payments online.

There’s a 2.6% fee that we charge, but for many cards out there the rewards earn outweigh the fee. Such as the cashback cards in this blog post.

Hope this clarifies! Feel free to drop us an email if you’d like more explanation.

You know there are cards around that have unlimited cap and even no minimum spend right…. even the cashback percentage might not be as high, it might still be less hassle free then using card up and paying a cut to card up…

You are right that there are many cashback cards with such benefits in the market.

However if you think about it, a lot of our big expenses today can’t be paid by credit card as the recipient doesn’t accept cards. Examples include rent to landlords, condo mcst fees, some schools’ fees and insurance premiums. Other payment types we are looking into are income tax, mortgage, car loans etc. As you can see, these are big recurring expenses that take up a big percentage of our monthly income but we are not able to charge to cards to earn cashback. This is where CardUp comes in to facilitate these payments allowing you to earn savings through the cashback received on your card.

Hope this makes the reason for using CardUp clearer for you, but do feel feel to let us know if you have further questions anytime.

CardUp payments are eligible for base rewards on all cards. For some cards, special online bonuses are applied on certain categories of spend, do check the card specific terms as these categories vary for different bank products.

Specifically for the cards you mentioned, CardUp currently qualifies for the online bonus on SCB SingPost card, UOB Preferred Platinum Visa and the BOC Family Card. Do note these are subject to changes in terms and conditions at any time at the discretion of the bank.

There are also bank-specific CardUp promotions running in the market at the moment. For more details on these, please contact us at hello@cardup.co.

When you switch your recurring payments to your favourite credit card via CardUp, you earn rewards from your credit card that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to from GIRO payments. At the same time, you still get to enjoy the same convenience you are getting from your GIRO arrangement. We call this ‘set and forget’ – set up your payments once at the start as a recurring payment, so you never have to worry about missing a payment again.

Hope this clarifies but feel free to let us know at hello@cardup.co if you have questions.

The last we checked with the Standard Chartered team, yes CardUp does qualify for the online bonus on the Standard Chartered SingPost Platinum Visa Card. Do note these are subject to changes in terms and conditions at any time at the discretion of the bank.

What if the bank refuse to accept the transaction through CARDUP for the card entitlement, what ever it is.
And by then transaction already closed, and we have been charged by CardUp for the transaction fees?

Before you make your payment, do check our benefits calculator for cards that work well with CardUp payments. We do work with the banks and aim to keep the information here as updated as possible, although there may be times the terms and conditions of individual card products may change without prior notice.

If you want information on any card before you schedule your payment, feel free to contact us at hello@cardup.co.

We can confirm that insurance payments made via CardUp are eligible for the 2% earn rate for online spend under the SC Singpost credit card (According to the new terms and conditions). Please contact Standard Chartered directly to confirm the exact date for when the new T&Cs will apply for you.

I understand that there have been some changes in the terms & conditions of the Standard Chartered Singpost credit card, now known as the Spree Credit Card. May I know is CardUp still qualified for the online spending of this card? And if yes, for a monthly rent of SGD800, how much will the cashback be? Thank you.

Yes, that is correct. CardUp transactions will be eligible for the 2% earn rate for online spend under the Spree Credit Card. Therefore for a monthly rent of $800, the cashback received should amount to $16. Do note that the rewards are subject to the discretion of the card issuer and the information provided is correct as of the time of writing.

Please note that the Terms and Conditions Governing BOC Family Credit Card Cash Rebate Programme will be amended with effect from 18 November 2017. The Family Cash Rebate for Online Purchases will be capped at S$30 per Card Account per billing cycle. please refer to:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6V6xLHWks5xAQF7xcWayUA

Would like to check with you, if I need to pay a monthly rent of SGD 1000, and I would like to use credit card A to pay for SGD 600 and credit card B to pay for SGD 400 in CardUp, for example, will the landlord be receiving a single payment of SGD 1000, or 2 separate payments of SGD 600 and SGD 400 in his/her bank account? Sorry for the weird question. Thank you.

Hi, the example you gave on UOB ONE card, the rebates are dished out quarterly. With the example of monthly rent of $1950, after recurring for 1 quarter, user is entitled to $100 for the 3 months. i.e. only $33.33 per month! In a year, user gets only $400. But the 2.6% on whole year’s transaction of $608.40 per year is > than rebate. Your example with UOB ONE is flawed and misleading to consumers.

Also, for the BoC Family Card, while the value proposition still hold for now, moving on they’re capping the 5% online rebate to $30 per month from 18th Nov 2017. If CardUp were to fall under that category, again the 2.6% cost would be higher than the rebates in absolute terms, on per-year basis. +$30 x 12 = $360 vs -$608.40. There is no math here.

Thanks Diana. You might also want to list down the card issuers who are willing to accept transactions from CARDUP as eligible transactions. As far as I’m aware, OCBC is currently deeming these are non-eligible for their cashback calculations.

Thanks for your feedback. For a monthly spend of $2,000, the UOB One Card offers 5% cashback equivalent to $300 per quarter or $100 per month. This is the example we’ve used in our table based on $2,000 spend per month, comprising of $1,950 rent + $50 CardUp fee.

Hope this clarifies but do drop us a note at hello@cardup.co if you’d like further elaboration.

In addition, I would like to point out that the UOB ONE credit card requires a minimum of 5 successful transactions per statement period in the quarter to qualify for the cash back. Not just the $1950+$50 which you pointed out (that is one transaction). So technically based on your illustration, he would have received no cash rebate and paid the 2.6% fees in vain to CardUp. I stand to be corrected but this is what I read from the terms of the UOB ONE Credit Card cash rebate dated 1 Feb 2017 (assessed on 7 Jan 18 from the UOB website). Appreciate your response on this. Thanks.

Thank you for reaching out and your feedback on the UOB One Card. Although the minimum requirement of 5 or more purchases has been mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, we apologise if our example had caused confusion. We have since edited it to reflect the requirements more clearly.

Though we have not been able to independently test the card on CardUp payments, we believe that CardUp spend would qualify only for the base earn rate and not as a ‘retail’ spend for Maybank Platinum Visa credit card.

Thank you for your suggestion. We would greatly appreciate if you can share with us which card are not longer eligible for points so that we can update our calculator accordingly.

Please feel free to let us know at hello@cardup.co or if you have any other questions.

You are able to pay 2 individual IRAS tax payments using UOB One Card. This will qualify as 2 transactions. Please enter tax reference number (eg: NRIC, FIN) or 14-digit payment slip number (omit dashes/space) OR 10-digit work permit number (include space). This will be printed against your transaction to IRAS to assist with reconciliation. It’s important to ensure this number is correct.

If you make other payments along with your CardUp transactions on your credit card and is able to hit a minimum spend of $2,000 monthly made over 5 or more purchases, the UOB ONE card will give you a 5% cashback capped at $300 per quarter.

If not, the Bank of China Family card is a great alternative with 5% cashback on online spend (including CardUp!) capped at $30 a month, which is $120 per quarter.

You may refer to the blog post as it is updated regularly to reflect the current rates of each credit card.

The calculations for BOC is flawed. For the fees, the total annum is rounded down. For the monthly cashback, it was rounded up. The net gain is exaggerated by S$10 (rounded up based on CardUp’s rounding).

Thank you for reaching out. The fees per annum is calculated as ($15.21*12) which adds up to $182.52. This has been corrected in the table.

However, the monthly cashback is actually rounded down as you can earn cashback on the CardUp fee as well! In this case, the cashback earned on the BOC Family card is calculated as 5%*($585+$15.21) which is $30.0105, rounded down to $30 as the max cashback you can earn for online purchases are capped at $30 monthly.

Hope this clarifies! If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us at hello@cardup.co.